Insanity and the Absence of It
by ShinigamiForever
Summary: He found himself lying on an empty highway, without memory or remembrance. He found a friend in a passing truckdriver. He found solace in his loss of history. And he found hope in a disappearing black car. A strangely disconnected fic.


Insanity and the Absence of It  
By: ShinigamiForever  
  
A/N: Inspired by a Chinese music video. It starts of with a view of the street where this red blob is lying on, then it clears and you see it's a young man holding a teddy bear, asleep on the street. Then there's all these mixed scenes where the young man runs after a red car, then the driver in the car, and finally when the young man and the driver meet eyes in a packed city street. It's really strange, but I loved it, so... This story kinda churned out. I must warn you, this is so random and strange that even I was afraid... Anyway... onto the story.  
  
====  
  
Silence. Sweet sweet silence...  
  
And then, a whispering noise. White noise, static, a mess of voices.   
  
A face. White and looming, blurred at the edges, a fog of white with eyes and framing hair.  
  
Eyes. Beautiful eyes, the color of the sky and flowers and water. Of peace.  
  
A touch. Soft, silky, light and cool. A ripple of water under a dewdrop.   
  
Light.  
  
Noise.  
  
Silence.  
  
Himself.  
  
Awakening.  
  
***  
  
As if on cue, he woke up suddenly. His hand, settled tightly and uncomfortably beneath his face, twitched, the fingers trying to close his hand. Dry and sour, he tasted his mouth, the feel of hunger and an empty hope. His hand curled together, a warm dusty fist that struck listlessly against nothing.  
  
Lying on the lonely ribbon of highway rolling into nothing. His tired eyes followed like headlights until the road narrowed into nothing, hair strand thin. The taste of dust and gravel was in his nose, and he coughed, violently, inhaling with a shaky wheeze in between fits. He sat up, limbs protesting any movements, rebelling against the grate of his joints. Pain.  
  
Why was he here?  
  
Something soft tucked in his hands. Something comfortable and covered with velveteen, rounded and stitched. He looked down, narrowing his eyes against the morning sun. A teddy bear. A small golden teddy bear, with a frayed blue ribbon tied around its neck. Insignificantly happy as it lay, curled up beside him. He rubbed his face, trying to wipe away the sleepiness and weariness.   
  
Where was he?  
  
He racked his brain for answers. Nothing. It was blank. As if some unseen hand had swiped away all his memories. He remembered nothing. His name, maybe. A birthday. A random number, a few names. But nothing more. No road-map. He felt vaguely uncomfortable. Alienated, separated. A stray that wandered into some distant land. The gravel bit at his palm.  
  
He never noticed the truck. It came up behind him, while he stared at nothing, trying to remember why, exactly, he was here. The truck sneaked up behind him, silent, great fumes of brown dust clawing at the air behind it. It honked, the noise loud and invasive.  
  
He didn't move. He didn't trust himself to move. His legs felt like gelatin, a soft quivering mass lodged beneath him. He could taste the morning air in his lungs now, full of dirt and stone and grass. One hand clutched at the stuffed animal.  
  
"Jesus, kid, you okay?" A voice, a type of smart-alek voice, bold and full of audacity. Rich and deep and young. A welcoming, hostile, friendly, laughing voice. He didn't turn around.  
  
"Hey, you, I said, are you okay?" He could hear the man approaching him, footfalls against the quiet roar of the stalling engine. Slow hesitant walking, judging his movements with careful recklessness.  
  
A light tap on the shoulder. He spun around reflexively, then instantly regretted his actions. The world went nauseous, spinning and green and bilious in his stomach. He retched, but could only produce saliva and acid. He could see the shoes of the man jump back. Continuing to cough, he raised his head slowly, carefully now, avoiding any sudden movements.  
  
The man's eyes were purple, like violets on a spring day. They glimmered in the morning light, a glint of blue and gold. Stupid, he thought. Gold wasn't in purple. He tried to shake his head, feeling the need to apologize or speak or something. The world began swimming, and he bent over in gasps and hurling coughs.  
  
Where am I, he thought anxiously as the stranger continued to ask if he was all right. Why am I here?  
  
***  
  
Duo watched the boy with curious glances, diverting his attention from the road for a few minutes. The young man had dark blue eyes and tousled brown hair, as if he had just ran his fingers through his bangs. He was tall, slim, and very athletic looking, younger than Duo. But there was something amiss in the eyes, something strange and blank. He was very handsome in a pretty way, all smooth angles and curves and long lashes. Dressed in a wrinkled gray overcoat, jeans, and a T-shirt, he looked like some hero in a sci-fi movie. Duo chuckled to himself, then turned his eyes back to the road.  
  
"Next time, if you need somewhere to sleep, find a hotel. Roads aren't the safest," he said, gauging the response from his mirror. The other's eyebrows furrowed, still silent, lips gently pursed as if thinking and sulking about something. Duo shot another glance, taking in the teddy bear with amusement. "Why were you on the road anyway?"  
  
"I don't know." Duo was surprised. It was the first time he had heard the other's voice. It was small and creaky, itchy with disuse. Helpless in a pitying way, groping for something in the air.   
  
"You don't know?" The young man nodded, clenching the teddy bear closer to him. "How can you not know?"  
  
"I just... don't."  
  
***  
  
Panic singed through his veins as he caught sight of the other car. A flow of sheer adrenaline and urgency, as if the black car held his lifeline around its tires. He suddenly sat up, furiously struggling with his seat belt, aware in some part of his brain that he looked like a lunatic. He slammed himself against the door in his hurry to get out, limbs flailing and entangling themselves.  
  
"What the-?!" The young man with the long hair cursing, as he swerved his car into the ditch on the side. He could hear the driver yelling at him to calm down, asking what was wrong. I don't know, I don't know, he repeated to himself, an insane mantra. What am I doing, where am I going, why am here, I don't know, like a cycle over and over again.  
  
Who am I, he questioned fearfully.  
  
The black car was sliding out of view, snaking its way through the lines of other cars. He yelled in hoarse fury, mindless with some unspeakable rage, just wanting to catch up with that car, that driver, demand to have it back, the-  
  
What?  
  
What made that car important?  
  
An empty smile.  
  
A pair of dangerous eyes.  
  
Strands of black hair floating in the wind.  
  
He continued to scream until he could no longer hear his voice, a gripping fear and pain taking over his body.  
  
Silence.  
  
Something, there, in the back of his mind.  
  
Reach for it. Almost, a glint of something, some-  
  
memory.  
  
Who am I, he screamed inside his head. Who am I?  
  
***  
  
Fear. Fear for himself and for the young man huddled on the side of the car. The young man, broken somehow. Duo was more than scared. He was frightened and confused, completely and totally lost. He had picked up hitch-hikers before, rugged men who swapped stories over beers. But never this, never someone who was lost and totally isolated.   
  
He clenched at the steering wheel, watching his knuckles turn ghastly white, and took a deep breath. Reaching over tentatively, he grasped the young man's shoulder. The other flinched so sharply it almost hurt, wincing, but then he relaxed, shuddering. His hands were rolled into fists, balled up so tight under his crossed arms that it looked painful, a keening noise escaping from the young man's throat, a high sound that sounded like a wounded animal.  
  
"Hey, hey," Duo murmured, trying to sound sympathetic. "It's going to be all right."   
  
A choked hysterical laugh burst out, followed by more soft whining. Duo gripped tighter, aware that it might have hurt. But he needed to bring that young man back to the normal plane, drag him out of the wrapped up cocoon he was in.  
  
Silence.  
  
An awful, knife edged silence.  
  
Then the young man began to shudder again, in silence.  
  
***  
  
(Stop it.)  
  
/I can't, I can't./  
  
(Stop acting like a baby!)  
  
/I can't!/  
  
(You're scaring the other man.)  
  
/I know, I don't mean to, I'm sorry!/  
  
(Get a HOLD of yourself!)  
  
/I'm trying!/  
  
(Try harder!)  
  
/Oh god.../  
  
He felt insane.   
  
For the love of God, he was arguing with himself. Taking deep breathes, he found himself calming down, slowly, the adrenaline retreating into his body, soaking calmly away. The shuddering stopped, and he found himself trying to sit up again, feeling embarrassed and flustered.   
  
"You okay now?" The warm vibrant voice, wrapping him in its color and beauty. He nodded, managing a weak smile. He felt a hesitant pause, and then the jerk of the car as it started up again, the magnificent engine lion rearing its head again.  
  
***  
  
"You took your coat off and stood in the rain  
You were always crazy like that  
I watched from my window  
Always felt I was outside looking in on you..."  
  
He had snapped on the radio 15 minutes ago, hoping to fill the awkward silence with something other than his own one-sided conversation. Now, as the familiar song blared in the empty air, he sang along.  
  
"You were always the mysterious one  
With dark eyes and careless hair   
You were fashionably sensitive, but too cool to care   
Then you stood in my doorway, with nothing to say   
Besides some comment on the weather..."  
  
A tenderly feminine voice joined along. To his surprise, it was the young man, singing along with the song absently, as if he was focused elsewhere. A tremor still in his throat, he was looking out the window with a heart-wrenchingly defenseless expression. Duo coughed nervously, but continued to sing along in the strange trio of voices.  
  
"Well in case you failed to notice   
In case you failed to see  
This is my heart bleeding before you   
This is me down on my knees..."  
  
"Heero."  
  
"I'm sorry?" Duo tilted his curiously, puzzled at the seemingly random word.  
  
"My name's Heero." A honey tipped wave of relief and, strangely, happiness spread over the driver as he smiled, throwing a glance at his passenger.  
  
"These foolish games are tearing me apart  
Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart   
You're breaking my heart..."  
  
"Duo Maxwell. At your service."  
  
A sincerely golden smile of- what? friendship?- lit up Heero's face as he turned around. "It's a pleasure."  
  
They continued to sing along as the road stretched on in front of them, an endless path of gravel and stones, empty and desolate.  
  
"You were always brilliant in the morning  
Smoking your cigarettes, talking over coffee  
Your philosophies on art, Baroque moved you  
You loved Mozart and you'd speak of your loved ones  
As I clumsily strummed my guitar..."  
  
***  
  
/"...forgotten? I loved you, you bastard."  
"As I did once, you."  
"But now..."  
"Do you still?"  
"Perhaps."  
"There is a gray area, no?"  
"Yes. It is you."  
"Yes, it is I."  
"I hate you."  
"Ah, little Heero, the line between love and hate is thin."  
"I know that. I love you as much as I hate you."  
"I see."  
"Do you ever hate anything?"  
"No. It's not exactly a.../  
  
But that had not been the question, had it?  
  
He should have asked, "Do you ever love anything?" That was, after all, what he had wanted to know.  
  
Suddenly, he convulsed, doubling over in his seat. Who was that man? Why did he once love him? What happened?  
  
And the ever constant question...  
  
Who am I?  
  
***  
  
"Kid, you have a place to go after I drop you off somewhere?"  
  
A pause, then Heero leaned his forehead against the window pane, racking his brain for an answer. A place to go? Maybe. Maybe he once did. A familiar surge of panic threatened to surge forth before he bit down on it.   
  
It was an adequate question. Did he have a place to go? The next passerby could be more cold-hearted than this one was now. What would he do for food or shelter? For that matter, did he have any money? He felt lost, enfolding himself deeper into his clothes and staring out at the passing scenery.  
  
"Probably not," he replied, knitting his eyebrows in thought.  
  
"Probably?" A hint of suspicion, caution.  
  
"I'm not sure."  
  
"Kid, something wrong with your head?" The driver's voice was kind of hoarse, he realized suddenly. Almost paternal, like one of those football coaches in old movies.  
  
What old movies?   
  
'I dreamed one man stood against a thousand,  
One man damned as a wrongheaded fool.'  
  
He had a vague remembrance of black and white movies, a mix of names and titles and actors. But he knew that if he thought hard enough, he would remember nothing. Nothing but skeletons of memories. But what if he kept thinking hard enough....  
  
'One year and another he walked the streets,  
And a thousand shrugs and hoots  
Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed.'  
  
"No, nothing's wrong with my head." A lie. A foolish, stupid lie. There was something wrong, but he couldn't figure out how it happened.  
  
Who had ever heard of someone just loosing their memory?  
  
'He died alone  
And only the undertaker came to his funeral.'  
  
"If you got nowhere to go, you can stay with me," he heard the other man say, a hint of a question in that voice, as if asking permission to offer his assistance.   
  
He considered it. After all, the man looked all right. He was already close enough to insanity to feel like anything was possible. The offer was tempting, to get comfort from someone and somewhere, to keep himself from wandering out alone.  
  
"Are you sure?" Like an adopted child who is frightened, hoping that his new home would not be taken away.  
  
'Flowers grow over his grave anod in the wind,  
And over the graves of the thousand, too,  
The flowers grow anod in the wind.'  
  
"I'm sure." A glinting smile, cheerful eyes. The truck hummed comfortably beneath Heero's feet, like a cat purring after being stroked.   
  
"Don't you have a family or something?"  
  
A soft chuckle. "Family? Nah." There was something sad in that voice. Heero wanted to reach out and touch it, find out what was wrong, soothe the rough sandpaper edges of that voice. But he was tired, a bone weary, dry, crackling kind of weariness. He gave up trying relaxing back into his chair.  
  
"Are you sure you won't mind?"  
  
'Flowers and the wind,  
Flowers anod over the graves of the dead,  
Petals of red, leaves of yellow, streaks of white...'  
  
"Of course not."   
  
There was a tempting silence, a weighed pause, as if the scales of justice were moving to judge which decision was right.  
  
"Can I?"  
  
"Would I offer if you couldn't?"  
  
"Then thank you."  
  
'Masses of purple sagging...  
I love you and your great way of forgetting.'  
  
***  
  
(2 years later)  
  
He came back only because of a whim.   
  
It was the same street, lonely ribbon of highway rolling into nothing. The empty asphalt had a burned scent to it, heat rising out from the black paint. The sides were overgrown with green grass. The sun beat down with ferocity, blinding his already over-stressed eyes with the brilliance of light.   
  
Over the years he had avoided streets, taking buses, carpooling whenever he could. He had blocked the bits of memory that he didn't want, pushing them like dust into corners. A blank slate. The world was now a new playground he had stumbled into. He had no say in the situation.  
  
Of course, Duo had tried to help. Psychologists, shrinks, the rest were all provided. But nothing could induce the memories to come back. Little fragments of thought sometimes dominated his thinking, but for the most part, he had kept his broken memory to himself. To himself, and the self that used to dwell there.  
  
A black car passed by, a glinting crow driving with devilish speed.  
  
For the sheer irony of it, he chased the car, a small smile painted on his lips.  
  
They sped off into the horizon.  
  
===  
  
A/N: Yes! Finally done! This is kinda my goodbye fic, though, cause I don't think I'll be writing too much GW after this. The series died out. 


End file.
